Dust to Dust
by Zellarius Burvenia
Summary: As the Vytal Tournament approaches, the forces of darkness gather to make their move. A generation of resentment, anger and hatred will culminate in a series of events that will rock Remnant to its core. Love may protect our heroes, but perhaps the villains once felt the same way. Picks up right where Volume 1 leaves off, so events will likely diverge wildly from the show.
1. Tell Me A Story

**Author's Note: To be perfectly honest, I'm not really in the same place I was when I started writing my Kingdom Hearts fics. I think I've changed too much as a person and as a writer to really go back and finish those - of course, if you want to know how those stories end, feel free to ask.**

**That being said.**

**RWBY is probably my favorite show right now. It's been a while since anything inspired me to write in the same way Kingdom Hearts did, and I hope that feeling stays with me for a while. Monty and everyone working with him are doing great things, and I can't wait for volume 2. I realize most if not all of this fic will probably be invalidated by volume 2. I'm at peace with that. Hopefully you will be too. Do let me know if you are or are not.**

**Enjoy.**

**-ZB**

* * *

"Yang, tell me a story."

The last time Ruby Rose had said that was on the night before shipping out to Signal Academy for her first taste of combat training. It had stormed then, and try as she might to hide it the thirteen-year-old still jumped at every flash of lightning. A mighty crash of thunder would follow each one, and she'd burrow a little deeper under her favorite red-and-black skull blanket. The stuffed Beowolf in her quivering arms had helped chase away her fear of the creatures of Grimm long ago, but no toymaker in the kingdom of Vale made little plush thunderclouds.

Yang Xiao Long had smiled then, ruffling her little sister's long black hair – Ruby wouldn't cut it short until the following winter, when she'd decide it would improve her aim in battle. "Aren't you getting a little old for that?" she'd said. Yang always said that – had said it, in fact, every time Ruby asked for a story since her tenth birthday. Ruby had declared herself all grown up then, too old for the usual stories of heroes and monsters Yang usually put her to bed with.

The worst storm in thirty years had roared through town that very night, knocking out the Dust stations and plunging half the city into darkness. Little Ruby had changed her tune on stories in a flash of the lightning outside, but her ten-year-old self's hubris would come back to haunt her every time Yang asked if she _really _wanted one. Ruby always would, especially on stormy nights.

On the airship back to Beacon from the City of Vale, fifteen-year-old Ruby was draped across a leather couch in a corner of the central lounge, watching the storm that had rolled in not long after the battle on the docks. She squeezed Crescent Rose to her chest, its folded-up frame red as the cape she was using as a blanket, and wondered when she'd stopped letting the thunder scare her. Probably not long after arriving at Signal, she decided. You couldn't go to a combat school without hearing explosions throughout the day, especially not one for young teenagers.

Even so…

"Yang, tell me a story." Ruby's voice broke a long silence that had lasted since they took off from Vale. Until Team RWBY saw the overstuffed leather seats in the ship's lounge, none of them had realized just how tired they were. As eyewitnesses to the failed port heist, they'd been subjected to a long round of questioning by the police – Blake especially, who was the only one who'd fought in it and stuck around afterwards. Sun Wukong was still on the run from Vale's finest, and Penny…was Penny. None of the four girls were sure what to make of her.

Yang yawned, stretched and shifted in her seat. "Aren't you getting…a little old for that?" she slurred, fighting exhaustion and rapidly losing. She focused on Weiss to keep awake. Maybe the heiress's dress would be bright white enough to shock the fatigue out of her eyes. Not that it had worked for Blake, who was curled up in her own chair and snoring quietly. Purring, almost – her being a Faunus definitely explained the sounds she made in her sleep.

"Yang." A little louder, a little more insistent. Not shrill, but getting there. Weiss stirred slightly in her sleep.

"I'm whooped. It's gonna suck."

"I don't care."

"It's been a while."

"I don't care."

"Get some sleep."

"Nope."

"Mhmm." Yang grunted as affirmatively as she could manage. Ruby closed her eyes, waiting as she'd waited more than two years ago – before Team RWBY, before Beacon, before Signal. Yang glanced around for inspiration. _Storm,_ she thought. _Going home, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, red, white…well, here goes nothing._

"Once upon a time, there were two Huntresses – one white like snow, one red like fire." Ruby opened her eyes a crack, watching Weiss sleep. She envied her partner. Weiss could be out like a light in minutes. Not like Ruby. She wondered how her bed stayed up, the way she tossed and turned some nights – lashed to the ceiling with hastily knotted ropes. She'd have to invest in something a little more permanent.

Yang's voice brought her back to the present. Ruby smiled, cuddling her scythe a little closer. Despite what Yang said, she could always count on her big sister for a story.

"They stood on the front lines of the war with the Grimm, and they were happy to stand there. Every Ursa slain, every Nevermore grounded, every Death Stalker squished – each victory brought hope for mankind's future. They loved nothing more than the thrill of a battle, because it meant survival for everyone they cherished. And as they fought together, they found that there was something they loved more, after all…"

Ruby was drifting off, the lethargy in Yang's words becoming infectious.

"Each other."

As Yang told her story, the great airship drew farther and farther away from the lights of Vale, in the opposite direction of a red-and-gold motorcycle speeding through the Agricultural District and out of the city. The slender figure astride the motorcycle gunned the engine as she left the buildings behind, a flaming scar tearing through the sleeping body of the forest. Cold autumn rain pelted down around the lone traveler, a cloud of steam rising in her wake as the water boiled away inches from her body.

"The darkness sent terrible creatures to extinguish these two blazing lights, bigger and more fearsome each time. Friends and family died around them, and sometimes it was a struggle to face their own losses, let alone the Grimm. But the red Huntress knew that with the love of her life at her side, calming her burning passion and anger with cold, calculating caution and discretion, there was nothing she could not face."

The motorcycle screamed through the trees beyond Vale as the woman pressed on. Her Aura kept her warm, radiating from her body and stopping the rain from soaking her pale skin, her charcoal-black hair, and the crimson fabric of her dress, which would otherwise be wholly inappropriate for the weather. Her eyes glowed like her headlights, yellow-orange pinpricks against the forest's evening gloom.

"In the same way, the white Huntress saw how the world suffered at the hands of the Grimm, and often despaired of ever banishing the darkness. Yet she persevered, for she knew her reason for being fought alongside her each day, breathing life into a weary heart with her fiery spirit."

With a slight nudge of her hands the woman brought her motorcycle off the road and onto a dirt path, slowing and coming to a stop. She paused, turning back to watch for any followers. When she was satisfied, she held out her hand before her. A tongue of fire flared up in her open palm, lighting her way as she dismounted. The ground hardened as she baked it dry with her Aura, providing a stable surface for her glass high heels. She walked up a gradual hill and through the close-knit trees, a jeweled anklet clinking softly around her right ankle.

"So they fought on, striking down evil wherever it threatened their way of life. And when one day the darkness claimed its prize, they died in each other's arms. For although all lights must one day flicker and fade, love endures even in death."

The woman in the dress broke out of the woods, emerging onto a steep cliff thrust up from the trees as if ripped from the earth by the hands of giants. She approached a small gray stone, slick with rain and carved into a block with a simple picture of a rose, its upper petals rising and curling like the peaks of a bonfire. _Summer Rose, _it read. Below that: _Thus Kindly I Scatter._

"Some say their spirits live on in every Huntsman and Huntress even to this day – reminding us all that while our duty is to fight for human and Faunus, for Remnant itself, our strength comes from the knowledge that someone somewhere is fighting for us as well."

Cinder Fall shed bitter tears as she fell to her knees and embraced the grave, tiny wisps of steam rising from her cheeks and vanishing with her sobs into the storm.


	2. Partners

Crocea Mors had been warmed by the blood of hundreds of Grimm since its forging, and over a century of care and maintenance had ensured the sword and shield remained exactly as good as in its first battle. History aside, however, a relic was a relic. Times had changed, and the great Hunter academies had long ago accepted that guns were the future of combat. Except among antiquarians and Grimm war reenactors, pure melee weapons had gone out of style. Even Cardin Winchester's mace could transform into a handcannon.

It wasn't easy being the only person not to use the weapons workshop. It had taken most of his first semester at Beacon, but Jaune Arc had finally gotten used to that. Somehow he preferred it that way. It meant that he boasted more time on the academy's sprawling sparring grounds than any other student – even the notoriously workaholic Weiss, who had been compensating by steadily racking up an army's body count in target dummies in the weeks leading up to the Vytal Festival tournament.

"It's not _my _fault the school's equipment isn't properly outfitted against Dust-based attacks," she'd said when deputy headmistress Glynda Goodwitch confronted her about this. "If it matters that much my family can have them replaced."

Jaune often wondered what it was like to be that rich. _Probably not so different than being normal_, he guessed. _Bigger house, better food, sure, but everyone's got problems of-_ "Agh!"

He stumbled back, cursing, and barely regained his balance in time to block a follow-up jab from a familiar spear. Its red-and-gold butt glanced off his shield as he refocused on the situation at hand.

"Stay vigilant!" Pyrrha Nikos called as her partner recovered.

Jaune gritted his teeth and swung high. Pyrrha danced around him. Jaune missed. Pyrrha rewarded him with a smack across the backs of his legs, sending him sprawling.

Face down in the dirt, again.

"Touché," Jaune muttered into the ground for at least the third time that hour. _Not one of my better days._ He felt the ground shake slightly. Pyrrha, jogging to his side.

"I'm sorry! I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Jaune took a deep breath and rolled onto his back. As was common – although less so recently, he liked to think – he found himself at Pyrrha's feet, concern and amusement fighting for control of her expression. He smiled. _I swear, she has the greenest eyes…_ "Right in the pride," he said.

Pyrrha smiled. "Pride grows back," she said, giving Jaune her hand.

Team JNPR's leader reached out to take it. Their eyes locked, and Jaune nodded his thanks.

Then he braced himself against the ground, rolled hard and threw Pyrrha over his shoulder.

"Hey-OOF!" Pyrrha hit the ground hard, her light bronze armor rattling as she fell in a heap at Jaune's side. _The sweet sound of victory!_ Jaune got to his feet, cracking his neck and watching Pyrrha gather herself up. Her bronze circlet was askew, and it pinned her ponytail at a rakish angle. She leaped to her feet and tossed her head, somehow fixing it all in that one smooth motion. Jaune almost wanted to throw her again just to see how she did it.

"Stay vigilant," he offered.

Pyrrha's gaze was icy, eyes narrowed to grassy slits. She maintained that glare for all of two seconds before bursting into laughter. Jaune laughed along. Now, he decided, might be a good time for a break.

"You've improved, you know," Pyrrha noted as they rested against a pair of apple trees at the side of the sparring grounds. She couldn't help a smile as Jaune registered confusion, and then quickly tried to hide it with nonchalance. "Me? Naw…"

"It's true. It's only been a semester. But even without using your Aura, you make me work for every hit."

Jaune blushed. High praise from a celebrity in her own land. "Well, it's my job as team leader, right? Gotta keep you guessing."

"I absolutely agree!" Pyrrha said. Intermittent explosions punctuated their conversation. Nora Valkyrie, practicing with nonlethal ammunition. They watched their teammate move –frolic_, _rather – as she struck down target after target with Magnhild, laughing and cheering irrepressibly. The way she used her warhammer/grenade launcher seemed random, carefree, and yet each target dummy took a direct hit to its chest. _Glad she's on my team…_ A black-and-green blur weaved among the assembly of mannequins. The targets fell to pieces as Lie Ren struck them, his body just as deadly as his pistols.

The hail of grenades provided him an extra obstacle. Whether Nora intended this or not was entirely up in the air.

Pyrrha looked thoughtful. "Not sure about today, though. Kind of sloppy, if you ask me." She raised a crimson eyebrow, daring Jaune to bite back.

_More than one way to spar, isn't there? _"Says the girl who got herself thrown through the air."

"Please. If I were an Ursa you'd be missing that arm! And maybe I wouldn't even need to be that."

"Pfft. If you were an Ursa you'd be sleeping outside."

Pyrrha's eyes lit up. "Jaune Arc, is that a wager?"

"Is it?"

Pyrrha jumped up and pointed a challenging finger at Jaune. "You. Me. One last spar. First to hit the ground sleeps on it tonight!"

Jaune stood, grinning. "Done. Maybe I'll let you take a pillow with you."

In moments they were back in the center of Beacon's sparring grounds. Jaune and Pyrrha squared off, spear and sword crossed as they laid out the terms of the duel.

"No Semblance?" Jaune said.

"And no Aura," Pyrrha added. "Let's make this quick – Team VILT has the grounds in ten."

"Gotcha. Don't hold back."

"I never do."

They tapped their weapons together once and took three steps back, falling into position. A low whistling sound underscored their preparations. Jaune ignored it. _Right. Wide stance and low to the ground, just like she always says…_ Jaune raised his shield, watching his opponent over its edge. Pyrrha paced back and forth, a predatory gleam in her eye as she spun her spear in one hand. _Wait for it…_

It never came.

The whistling stopped.

And Jaune was thrown bodily away from his opponent. Not for the first time at Beacon, he soared screaming through the air. The academy tilted and spun as he lay stunned. _Where did Pyrrha learn that?_

But as Jaune struggled to a sitting position, he saw that Pyrrha was doing the same. He looked down. They seemed unharmed – just covered in a fine white powder from the explosion. _Ash, probably. _She shook her head to clear it, straightened her circlet and met Jaune's eyes. "That wasn't-?"

"Nope."

"Then who could have-" A gleeful giggle, verging on a cackle, drew their attention to one side. Nora stood there, watching them get their bearings and hugging Magnhild like a teddy bear.

"Sorry!" she called, in a tone that indicated she was not sorry at all. "Couldn't help but overhear." She winked. "Guess you both have to sleep outside now, riiiight?"

Jaune blushed, his dizziness returning with a vengeance. "Well – I – I mean, not that I wouldn't, but I really think-"

"Jaune." Jaune shut his mouth, cut mercifully short by Pyrrha. The Mistralite warrior ran her finger along her armor, picking up some powder and testing it with her tongue. "Do you…taste that?"

Jaune licked his lips. His jaw dropped. "Nora, is this-"

* * *

"Sugar," Ren sighed. He deliberately avoided Nora's eyes as he counted out scoops of powdered Dust for StormFlower's bullets. "Most people use rubber or paint ammunition in their training. Nora uses sugar rounds."

"Shhh! You'll give away my secret!" Nora flicked Ren on the ear and returned to her work. She tipped a burlap sack with SUGAR crossed out and replaced with AWESOME!, carefully pouring a river of sweet crystals into a cartridge.

She had little to worry about. Other than her and Ren, there were only two other people in the workshop.

"I _thought _the school's iced tea was bland lately," Weiss mused. She was seated just a few feet down the workbench from Ren and Nora; Myrtenaster lay in front of her as she extracted spent gray Dust crystals from the cylinder. "Well, I'm sure Ruby would agree that it's probably for the best." _Let's see…red Dust or green?_

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Ruby looked up from oiling Crescent Rose's blade for the first time that hour.

_Definitely red. _"You sleep like a baby," Weiss pointed out, still focused on her work. "Restlessly, and making far too much noise."

"I have some tea that helps with insomnia," Ren chimed in helpfully. Or unhelpfully, depending on one's perspective. Ruby rolled her eyes. "I don't sleep _that_ badly…Nora, back me up?" she whined.

Nora brightened, sweeping her disassembled grenade launcher aside. "One time I got up to get a glass of water and I heard you talking in your sleep about walnuts! You sleeptalk kinda loud, too."

"Not helping."

"Sounds like you need some of my walnut cookies!" Nora sang, returning to her work. "Now, where did I hide that firing pin…" At the mention of cookies Ruby immediately perked up, but before she could say anything Weiss spoke up again.

"By the way, will either of you enter the tournament this weekend?" Weiss had looked up from her disassembly and reloading of Myrtenaster, acutely aware of the potential rivals to her glory.

"Already registered," Ren confirmed, polishing StormFlower one last time. "They release the bracket on Thursday." With a couple of quick clicks, his machine pistols were nestled in his sleeves where they belonged.

Nora sighed, a dreamy expression on her face. "I can't wait! _I _hear the winner gets a year's supply of Dust! Imagine the possibilities…" _Indeed_, thought Weiss. _Some colors you can't buy in stores..._ "I wonder if anyone's tried making Dust tea?" Weiss nearly snapped a yellow Dust crystal in half, but said nothing.

"And ten thousand lien," Ruby said, smiling greedily. "That's what the shipment from Atlas was here for – as much Dust as the winner can carry and more. That'd make a _lot _of bullets…"

Ren nodded. "I certainly could use that. Machine pistols eat Dust like a vacuum." He yawned and rose to leave. "It's getting late. Good evening. Nora?"

Nora beamed and saluted Ruby and Weiss goodnight. "Right behind you!" Weiss could have sworn Nora was in the middle of reassembling Magnhild the last time she looked up, but it looked good as new. _Sometimes I think that girl works on a different plane of existence than we do…_

Weiss and Ruby passed the next few minutes in silence – which, after their first semester on a team together, was finally companionable. Still, as Weiss caught her own reflection staring up at her from Myrtenaster's gleaming blade, she couldn't help but think that there were things still to be said. The previous weekend hadn't really come up in conversation lately.

_She's actually come really far since I met her. She may be impulsive, naïve, and more than a little weird. But she really wants this, doesn't she? She wouldn't be at Beacon if she wasn't serious about being a Huntress. And besides-_

"Weiss? Is something wrong?"

"Hmm?" Weiss was jarred back into the moment, and noticed for the first time that she'd been staring. _Well, not exactly staring…just zoning out in Ruby's general direction. It happens to everyone._ "Oh. No, Ruby, I was just thinking about something."

Ruby cocked her head, waiting for her partner to continue. She didn't. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you?"

Ruby shrugged. "Well, you're usually really focused. But I get distracted all the time when something's on my mind. What's on yours?"

_Nothing_, Weiss wanted to say. Her reflection was back, gazing out at her from Ruby's wide, silver eyes, and Weiss wasn't sure she felt comfortable with her other self's stark appraisal of her. But she didn't look away. There was something else in Ruby's eyes, something she couldn't quite place at first.

_Concern?_

_...That's new._

"It's about Saturday," Weiss found herself saying. "You heard the explosion at the docks and went to help Blake, right?"

"Yeah," Ruby said. "It was Penny that really saved the day, though. I wish she'd stuck around, there's so much I still don't-"

"You did a really dangerous thing," Weiss said. A note of reproach was slipping into her voice. Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but Weiss cut her off. "It was dangerous, and impulsive, and you could have easily gotten yourself killed…"

"But she was in danger! I couldn't just leave her!"

"That's what I'm trying to say!" Weiss's voice broke on the last word. She sighed. "You're just that kind of person. Yang and I were on the other side of the city when it happened. She headed straight for the docks…I went and got the police."

Understanding crept into Ruby's eyes. "Weiss, someone had to. It was way bigger than just us. You shouldn't beat yourself up over it." She smiled. "Besides, you saved me from that Death Stalker, remember? I'm not the only one who risks her life for other people."

"That's different." Weiss's voice was trembling now. She looked away from Myrtenaster, away from Ruby, searching for some surface that wasn't reflective. "I didn't even _like _you then. I did it because I had to. You do all these crazy things to help people, and half the time you get blown up or something. But you keep doing them." Weiss swallowed. "And here I am, too busy fighting with other people to see-"

"…That you want to get blown up too?"

Weiss stopped, trying to parse what she'd just heard. _That…that actually makes sense._ She nodded, meeting Ruby's eyes again. Her teammate was smiling like nothing was wrong. _Is anything even?_

"Weiss, I know how it feels. We've both lost people who were important to us. We just deal with it differently. I want to be the best Huntress I can be so I can protect the ones I love. And I get the feeling you want the same thing. You're just…" Ruby hesitated. _Am I going too far?_ she wondered. "Afraid, I guess."

"Excuse me?" Weiss's pale blue eyes went hard.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Ruby scrambled, nearly panicking at Weiss's reaction. "I mean, I am too, sometimes. Someone we care about goes away and then we're afraid to care about someone else because what if they go away too, and so we just keep to ourselves, and…" Ruby caught herself, digging her nails into her palm to slow herself down. "I'm…really close to my sister. She basically raised me, and I kinda cling to her because she's always been there. It's hard for me to meet new people, so I try really hard for the ones I do get to know. I'd…want them to do the same for me." Ruby fell silent, catching her breath and trying to read Weiss's expression. Surprise, confusion, and…sympathy?

"Ruby…" Weiss had softened, and for the first time since meeting Ruby the girl had her at a loss for words. She felt something warm in her hand, and became dimly aware that the younger girl's hand had found her way into hers at some point during the conversation. She considered taking her hand away, but decided against it. "I…well, I've never really clung to anyone. With me it's just 'What have you done for me lately?'"

Ruby squeezed Weiss's hand and shook her head. "That's not true. And even if it is, it doesn't make you a bad person. Sometimes we just forget that…that we all need someone, and there's always someone who needs us."

Weiss felt something touch her cheek. She raised her free hand to deal with it and was surprised to find a stray tear. She flicked her gaze away for a second and met Ruby's eyes again. There was still concern in them, along with something else Weiss wasn't used to seeing. Whatever it was, it was feeding a smoldering somewhere deep in her chest that she wanted more of. Weiss opened her mouth, but said nothing. _What more is there to say?_

Several things vied for Weiss's attention – that blossoming warmth in her chest, Ruby's hand tight in hers, the shape of the young Huntress-in-training's lips. Without really focusing on one, Weiss found herself and Ruby leaning closer over the workbench, Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster lying forgotten below them. Each second seemed to introduce things unfamiliar and yet not at all unpleasant to Weiss, sensations blending into each other faster than she could comprehend them. Her reflection in Ruby's eyes, no longer reproachful. The blush rising to Ruby's cheeks like the petals of her Semblance. The warmth of her partner's breath against her face. The softness of her lips, pressed tentatively to Weiss's own.

However long they remained that way, they broke apart all too soon for Weiss. Ruby was silent for a moment, looking at Weiss, then Crescent Rose, then their hands intertwined, then back at Weiss. Weiss herself watched Ruby's eyes dart about. She couldn't help but giggle a little at her. Ruby settled on Weiss's eyes, chips of blue glass in the snow. "Do we…understand each other?" she whispered, as if speaking any louder would shatter such a delicate moment.

Weiss considered saying something, decided against it. She merely nodded.

Ruby smiled then, equal parts relief, uncertainty and contentment. Her cheeks were damp from Weiss's tears. She raised her free hand to dry them off; then, thinking better of it, she reached across to brush the tears from Weiss's face. Weiss tensed at the gesture, but only for a moment.

_I could get used to that._


	3. Opportunities

_Ruby's world was fire._

_The room was ablaze around her. Her mouth was dry – she was sweating and crying all the moisture out of her body, choking on the smoke pouring in under the door like water._

_She faced the door, the window, the door again, the exits beyond her reach. Formerly friendly faces mocked her from the carved wood bars of her crib, their smiles turned to jeers in the flickering firelight. The flames offered a dull glow to the room, glinting in her silver eyes like a red moon at sea._

_Ruby screamed, but knew no words to call for help. She grasped for Crescent Rose, but her beloved scythe was not there. It wouldn't be there for years. She caught sight of her hand, small and frail, batting uselessly at her wooden prison. It was almost as much of a cell as her own infant body._

_Scraps of the outside world tormented her with their vagueness. Beyond her locked door an irregular staccato of explosions fed the roaring fire. Bursts of thunder and gunfire echoed through the hallways, drowning out the indistinct voices fading in and out outside Ruby's bedroom. There were five voices – three high, two low – but Ruby couldn't understand them._

_She rattled the bars on her crib, screaming incoherently, just in time for her door to be ripped from its hinges. It hung from the wall like a sick bat. A wave of heat knocked Ruby off her tiny feet. The figure who'd kicked in the door jumped forward with demonic speed, a wall of fire eating up the hallway behind him. Ruby screamed as the stranger gathered her up, she screamed as he shrugged his coat off and wrapped her up in it, and she screamed as he shielded her body with his and took a running leap out the window._

_They fell into open air, out over the choppy waters of a stormy sea, a sudden coolness enveloping them. As the world rushed dizzyingly upward around them, Ruby heard a sound from above her like a sheet being shaken – _

_And they were flying._

* * *

"Ruby! _Ruby_! _RUBY!"_

_"__No! Get AWAY from me! MOM!"_

"What do I do? Someone help!"

Ruby thrashed in the grip of some unseen person with two voices. If she opened her eyes, they'd both get her.

"Sis! Wake up!"

Ruby heard the slap before she felt it. A stinging blow to the cheek ripped her from a faraway night into this one. Her eyes fluttered open, filling her vision with gold. A quick glance to her right showed her a bunch of white leather suitcases, of the kind Weiss kept in the corner. Something soft tickled the back of her neck. Carpet.

Ruby was on the dorm's floor. She caught her ragged breath, looking up again. Yang was bent over her, her hands on her shoulders, her prized golden locks disheveled, her eyes fading from red to their usual lilac. "Y-Yang?" Ruby whispered. "Is that you?"

Yang sighed as her sister recognized her, pulled Ruby into a hug and kissed her briefly on the forehead. As the older girl shushed her softly, Ruby's eyes adjusted by degrees to the near-total darkness. Weiss was kneeling nearby, one hand held out tentatively toward her, looking stricken. Ruby could just barely discern Blake's outline on her other side. The Faunus girl was outwardly neutral, but her knuckles were white against a shaking Beacon mug.

Ruby caught sight of Weiss's alarm clock.

4:37.

Her shoulders slumped. "Did I wake you?" she asked tonelessly.

"That's hardly our primary concern!" Weiss scooted as close to Ruby as she could without crowding Yang. "Ruby, what was that? What were you dreaming of?" There was a quick scraping sound, and her silver eyes shone in flickering candlelight – Blake had just lit her candelabra.

"Sounded more like a nightmare to me." Blake padded over to Yang's other side and handed Ruby the mug. "Cream and five sugars?" The coffee burned Ruby's tongue, but she nodded and sipped nonetheless.

"Thanks."

An uncomfortable silence followed, broken only by Ruby gently sipping her coffee. Weiss was kneeling awkwardly near her partner, wishing Yang would let her come closer. Blake watched the sisters for any sign of an explanation. Yang was the first to speak.

"Did you have the fire dream again?"

"What?" Weiss, incredulous.

"Fire?" Blake, puzzled.

Ruby downed another gulp of coffee. She stared into the mug. Her silver eyes stared back.

Then, in a small voice: "…Yeah."

* * *

"She used to have it all the time," Yang said over the sound of running water. She'd given up on sleeping through tonight. "After her first term at Signal, we thought it was gone for good."

"But it isn't." Blake was in the shower stall next to Yang's, having elected to help her with an early breakfast later. "Why do you think that is?"

"Beats me."

Blake let that hang between them for a couple of minutes, letting the warm water rinse the shampoo out of her hair. Her cat ears were soaked, but over the shower's noise she picked up a heavy sigh from Yang. She smiled. Being a Faunus wasn't all bad.

"Yang."

"Yeah."

"What happened to her?"

Yang's shower went silent; after a moment, Blake turned hers off as well. Steam billowed up around her. The air conditioning clicked on at that moment. Blake's skin immediately prickled as she became conscious of how cold she was and yet how stuffy the stalls were without the hot water. In moments she was out of the shower, black towels around her hair and her body. She stood in stark contrast to the blue-and-white tiles of the dorm bathroom, matched only by the predawn dark beyond a solitary window. Yang occupied the far end of a bench in the middle of the room, wrapped in a golden towel and furiously drying her voluminous blonde hair with another.

_She's stonewalling. _Blake approached her partner, undaunted. "You know I won't let it go until you tell me."

"Well…" _Whiff whiff whiff whiff whiff _went the towel. Yang shook out her hair, rested her elbows on her knees and exhaled sharply. "It's complicated."

Blake cocked her head, waiting.

"Like, _really _complicated."

"I used to be a terrorist. Try me."

"Yep." Yang blew out her cheeks, cracked her neck and met Blake's eyes. "Tell me what you think you know."

She wasn't making it easy. Blake took that as a sign of respect, for her and for Ruby. "I _think _a recurring dream is usually based in reality. I _think _something happened to Ruby that she's repressed or mostly forgotten. And you two are inseparable – if it happened to Ruby, odds are it probably happened to you."

Yang had that rueful smile Blake had come to recognize – the one that meant she was cornered, usually by creatures of Grimm while on a mission for Beacon. It was a fighting smile.

It made her cat ears twitch.

"Sometimes I think you know me and Ruby better than we do." Yang brushed her hair out of her eyes; it was already starting to regain its bounciness.

_My, but that towel is tight on her_, Blake mused. _No. Bad kitty. _"Maybe. Did something happen to your parents?"

"Well, that's that. You're our long-lost sister, all right!" Bubbly as Yang usually was, it wasn't often that Blake saw her smiles falter. Blake sat down next to her, saying nothing. She'd talk in her own time. Thirty seconds later, she did.

"It's…never been a secret that we're adopted. To either of us. Like, we're blood sisters, but both our real parents are long gone. Ruby was only a baby when Mom died, and that dream is all she knows from the night that it happened. I remember a little more of it, but not much."

As Yang talked about Ruby's dream, she seemed more distant than Blake felt was normal for her. Yang gradually picked up speed as she spoke, at times looking away from or even through her partner. _She's rehearsed this in her head, _Blake inferred._ She's just never performed it. _The dream was the same every time, she learned: always a fire, always a battle, always flying away from it all.

"Not to sound skeptical…but how much of the dream is real? How much of it is...well, a dream?" _The end in particular. An angel? Preposterous._

Yang shrugged. "Well, it's like I said. Ruby's always loved the stories of heroes and monsters I used to tell her. I think part of that is because they're based on truth." Abruptly, Yang replaced her dispassionate expression with her usual beaming smile. "So I guess it makes sense that her dreams are the same way. It doesn't matter whether they really happened or not, as long as the message is clear."

Blake turned to face Yang, yellow eyes searching lilac for a straight answer. "That still doesn't explain why this nightmare would come back after two years. Something had to have happened – something to do with your parents, and recently." _Go easy on her, Blake. Curiosity killed the…well, you know._

But it was too late. Yang was well on her way to being as irrepressibly chipper as she usually was. "You'd have to ask Ruby about that." Yang shook out the controlled chaos of her hair and giggled. "Or Weiss."

_Ah, good – I'm not the only one._ "You've noticed it too?"

"Like you'd notice a Beowolf in your bed!" Yang laughed. "It's so funny how bad they are at hiding it. Remember yesterday morning? Weiss was talking to Ruby at breakfast-"

"And she just kept blithely pouring sugar in her coffee?" _Well, congratulations, Yang. You've successfully derailed this conversation._ Still, Blake couldn't help but laugh with her. "She spit it all over you!"

Yang made a show of cringing. "Ugh, I know! So much in my hair…so much fire…"

"It baked that stuff right into your hair…Why is it that you do that, again? Explode, I mean."

"Who knows? Every Semblance is different."

Another deflection. Blake sensed she was hitting upon something again. "True, but most people can control theirs."

"Hmmm." Yang chose not to pursue that line of questioning. She was looking _at _Blake again, though, now with an appraising gleam in her eyes. Blake wasn't sure she understood it, but she wasn't entirely averse to it. "You know why I think we make good partners, Blake?"

"Because we can both touch our noses with our tongues?"

Yang scooted a little closer to Blake, readjusting her towel to keep her burning-heart insignia straight. Their hips touched. "Definitely. But we're alike in a different way too." _Pause for effect_. _Now I know where her sister gets her sense of humor_. "You don't know it yet, but in a way we're both fighting to figure out who we are. So whenever we see an opportunity…we take it." She had dropped her voice, forcing Blake to lean in to hear her.

And that was when Yang closed the distance and kissed her on the cheek.

There was the steam again, bubbling up within Blake instead of without.

Before Blake had fully registered what just happened, Yang bounced up off the bench, sashaying toward the door and back to their dorm. "Get dressed and meet me in the kitchens," she called over her shoulder, hips swaying in a way that was surely deliberate. "We don't want to be late for when Goodwitch announces the tournament bracket!"

The door closed behind her. Blake sat still on the bench for a good minute and a half, replaying that fraction of a second again and again the entire time. She was blushing furiously, deep red against pure black like an amorous checkerboard. Out of the corner of her eye she could see tinges of turquoise creeping into the dark skies over Beacon. The towel slipped from her hair as she watched the morning break, a few strands falling and dancing across her vision. And dancing. And dancing.

Blake clamped her hands over her cat ears to stop them from twitching.


	4. Players

That morning, as most Thursday mornings, found Glynda Goodwitch scribbling away at the ironwood desk in her office. The room was lit by softly glowing lavender Dust lamps and by her Scroll, the dull buzz of the Vale News Network's opening music vying with her work for her attention. A well-worn quill pen was poised within a hair's breadth of the paper, plucked from the back of a young Nevermore and dyed a brilliant purple.

Glynda eyed the paper but did not write, wary as always of commiting to something that couldn't be erased. By nine in the morning, her paper would have ordinarily been brimming with ink. It was 9:03 now, and Beacon's deputy headmistress had yet to write more than a handful of words. Her pace was in danger of drifting from methodical to sluggish, and it was putting her right off her eggs, hard-boiled slices untouched and cooling off to the side.

She scoffed and tapped the screen of her Scroll, turning up the volume as the morning news began.

"…losses from the freighter incident amounted, as my co-anchor Cyril Ian mentioned, to at least thirty million lien – well short of the precedent set by recent White Fang raids on Schnee Company property, but putting yet another unwelcome dent in their stock in an already trying year. Bianca Reine-Schnee, an influential shareholder, widow of the company's late founder Claus Schnee I and mother of current CEO Claus II, had this to say at yesterday's press release…"

The feed cut from modern, sharply dressed VNN anchor Lisa Lavender to an older woman who looked like she'd stepped out of a wedding in the previous century – tall and stately in a white floor-length dress, silver hair bound in a strict, straight plait, one of many rigid lines that seemed to define her. Her eyes, light blue like the tips of a glacier, betrayed little in the way of emotion as she condemned the attack.

"To put it quite simply, we are faced with a segment of the population that refuses to assimilate. Why would they, when the White Fang dangle our very livelihoods before them like a carrot on a stick? Last week's act of terrorism is yet more proof of the crime and depravity inherent to the Faunus race."

Glynda choked at that last statement, a teacup raised daintily to her lips. Her violent coughing fit scattered tea across the paper and wood, but mercifully drowned out the rest of Bianca Reine-Schnee's tirade. As she dabbed tea off her desk with a nearby handkerchief, a tiny chime interrupted the news report. An alert had popped up in the corner of her Scroll's screen. Ozpin.

Glynda answered without a moment's hesitation. _Anything but this bigot._

The headmaster's face appeared and grew to fill the right half of the screen, pushing a muted Lisa Lavender off to the left. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, his glasses askew and his eyes squeezed shut as if against an explosion. Finally he shook his head, exhaled and adjusted his glasses. The gesture was growing uncomfortably familiar to Glynda.

"Unbelievable, isn't it?" he said.

Glynda hated raising her voice. Instead she traced her teaspoon around the rim of her teacup, the scraping of silver on porcelain expressing her distaste in all the ways she preferred not to. "Why do they give this woman a microphone?"

"VNN is a Schnee subsidiary. Why wouldn't they?"

_Scraaape. Scraaape. _"Human-Faunus relations have come a long way, Professor. She can't be good for PR."

"Perhaps not, but a Dust monopoly seems to be an effective antidote to boycotts. Besides, with what the Crown pays to keep the border wards running, I doubt she'd notice if we all stopped buying."

On the left side of the screen of Glynda's Scroll, the news had cut to commercials. Gorgeous actors and actresses with straight, flawless teeth were silently extolling the virtues of Shi-nee Toothpaste. A point of bright light glimmered on one man's smile, growing and morphing into the white snowflake of the Schnee Dust Company as the commercial came to a close.

_Scraaaaaaaaape._

Glynda gritted her meticulously brushed and flossed teeth, suddenly and briefly craving sugar.

"Can we talk about something else?"

"Naturally. There is the matter of the tournament this weekend…"

There it was. The headmaster trailed off, carefully considering his words and leaving the conversation hanging. Glynda had long ago learned to wait for Ozpin to finish his thoughts at his own pace. Usually it only happened in private, but lately she doubted Ozpin even knew he was doing it. Something was bothering him. By the nature of their professional and personal relationship, whatever bothered Ozpin would soon bother Glynda as well.

Glynda was not in a patient mood today. "You think she's involved."

Ozpin blinked, looking for a moment like Glynda had caught him sleeping through dueling lessons. "In…a manner of speaking," he said, rarely off guard for long. "The paperwork checks out for every entrant except these two."

Glynda's scroll chimed with another alert. She opened the two files Ozpin had sent her, the news long forgotten. Now there were three faces on the screen: Ozpin's and two others'. A slight, dark-skinned girl stared thoughtfully out at Glynda, blood-colored eyes framed by mint-green hair and seeming to scrutinize her even from this picture. A pale man smirked up from below her, unkempt silver hair at odds with the predatory focus in his matching eyes.

"Emerald Venus and Mercury Black. Recognize them?"

"No."

"You wouldn't. Officially, they don't exist." The two dossiers scrolled down, parts of the contestants' personal information highlighted in red. "Their addresses are abandoned warehouses in Atlas, their academic records are not corroborated by Warden or Sentinel Academies, and their true names can only be guessed at." Ozpin adjusted his glasses, paused, and continued. "These two are off the grid – I can understand that. But they've hidden it so _poorly._"

"So disqualify them for falsifying their applications."

"Out of the question. Anyone who was seriously attempting to do that would at least try to fake a real residence. She's smarter than this. If she truly has conjured them from thin air, we're expected to know."

Ozpin's tone was measured, verging on rehearsed. It left a sour taste in Glynda's mouth – something she had both expected and dreaded. "You've been waiting for this – if indeed this is what you think it is."

"I've been keeping my eyes open," Ozpin said. "This is the first lead we've had in months – one of the only leads we've had in fifteen years." Iron crept into Ozpin's voice. "After that encounter at the Dust shop, Cinder Fall won't dare risk appearing in public."

Glynda was half out of her chair, blonde curls bouncing. "If I hadn't intervened, Ruby would have-"

"Died, yes. We've been over this, and I don't blame you in the slightest. The encounter was an unfortunate fluke, but we need Ruby alive. The downside is that Cinder knows we've been looking for her. She knows we came close. If we ever see her again, it's going to be on her terms." Ozpin had come to dominate Glynda's screen by degrees, and he leaned back in his Mantler steel chair. "Mercury and Emerald are extensions of her will. In exposing them she exposes herself. If this is a trap, we have little choice but to spring it."

"And the children?" Glynda pressed. "Where do they come in?"

Ozpin's hands, folded on his desk, tightened their grip on each other. "We do our best with what we have, while we have them, and ensure they do what needs to be done when the time comes."

The scraping of spoon on cup had long since ceased. Glynda sipped her tea and grimaced. Lukewarm. "Once upon a time, you did what needed to be done. You and Qrow. Why have we spent fifteen years dealing with the consequences? Who's to say our students are prepared to make that sort of decision?"

In years past, questions like that would have killed the conversation entirely. Ozpin's level gaze told Glynda he was considering it. Finally, he rose and took up his cane. "I haven't raised my voice to you in eight years, Glynda, and I'm not about to start again," he said. "Suffice it to say that one perceives a scenario entirely differently from within than from without. I tried the former once, and fifteen years later here we stand."

"Here sit we down to see the mystery and serve for Chorus in this tragedy."

"Don't quote _The Mistralite Tragedy _at me. I'm not suggesting we let the matter pass. We the players have our pieces, and there's a long overdue game to end. Not to win, not to lose – to _end._" Ozpin's knuckles were white on the handle of his cane. Blood rushed back into them as he loosened up, looked at the jade clock on his wall. "And in twenty minutes there's a tournament bracket to announce. I'll see you in the amphitheater in ten." Ozpin's hand drifted to the side of the picture, and the feed cut out.

Glynda was alone in her office again. She dismissed the alarm she'd set to prepare for the announcements, collecting her Scroll and riding crop and rising from her desk. An idle wave of her hand sent her cold, congealed breakfast into the incinerator at the desk's edge; it was a lost cause.

Glynda took a moment to fix her hair in the mirror before she left, trying to avoid her own judgmental stare. _It's a poor professor who plays with the lives of her students,_ she chided herself. _It's a worse one who leaves them to solve her problems, _another part of her responded. She tossed her head back to settle her hair in its usual style of organized carelessness. _But they're not your problems, are they? They just became yours._

She glanced back at the desk with its barely-marked paper, sighed and walked out of the room.

The crossword would have to wait.

* * *

Few things.

1. Sorry this took so long. It's been an interesting month.

2. I'm working from the assumption that Glynda recognized Cinder from the battle in the first episode. This obviously runs counter to the show, in which Cinder was hidden in shadows during that scene. That's just one of many things that will be different.

3. Next chapter is Jaune and Pyrrha again.


End file.
